North Korea’s second attempt to launch and insert the Malligyong-1 military reconnaissance satellite into low Earth orbit ended in failure on Thursday. But the Chollima-1 launch vehicle achieved greater success than during the first launch attempt in May. 

Critically, instead of failure at apparent second-stage separation, the three-stage launch vehicle performed successfully until a failure associated with the third stage of flight.

According to a North Korean state media report released shortly after the failure, the DPRK’s National Aerospace Development Administration assessed that “the flights of the first and second stages of the